COMMENT

Back to the floor 2000

The television programmes which show top executives or supermarket bosses going 'back to the floor' make fascinating viewing. Even the odd Headmistress has been shown venturing back into classroom teaching. However, it is an even odder Headmistress who decides to become a pupil again, even if only for a day, in order to gain a girl's-eye view of the school. It cannot be done too frequently, but every three years seems to be the right time-lapse and I have found it a particularly effective and non-threatening way of observing the school community - a quirky means of appraisal maybe, but probably as accurate as the contrived interview!

Firstly, the diary must be consulted to choose a day when there will be no commitments and, hopefully, no crises. The second priority is to choose a year group which does not have PE on the timetable for that day. After my experience six years ago of participating too enthusiastically in a netball game, I am understandably wary of sports lessons. Unused to such vigorous exercise, I tore a muscle and was stretchered off to the San where I could appreciate at first hand how well the girls are treated when accidents occur! I realised that my future 'back to the floor' exercises would need a sick note for PE.

Next I must pick a student within the chosen year group to be my Big Sister for the day. She must be capable of tolerance and patience towards a very ignorant, but mature, new student for a whole day. On one occasion three years ago, my long-suffering Big Sister gave me a guided tour of the school and paused at the Headmistress' Study to explain that she wasn't there that day but out doing 'something important'.

The last piece of preparation is to obtain a school uniform which fits and which has a skirt long enough to be decent. I have personally discovered to my cost that school tights do not contain enough lycra and can succumb to the forces of gravity - we shall have to change our supplier! I made sure I had a large school bag so that the many problems of where to leave it during the day could be tested. The one reference book inside it seemed vital - 'Bobbi Brown's Book of Teenage Beauty - Everything you need to look pretty, natural, sexy and awesome'. It had been confiscated in an English class only the previous week but, although my research had been thorough, it didn't seem to have worked!

My Big Sister collected me at 8.30am on the appointed day. She and her friends were very protective of me at Registration as I had confided to them my fears of being bullied. They also kindly offered to help me at Assembly. Junior forms sit cross-legged on the floor and, although I could get down easily enough, getting up was much more difficult. The Guardian (Head Girl) in charge of Assembly was very much in control. Her eyes only widened ever so slightly when she spotted me. After Assembly, the rush to the lockers and the Senior Mistress' terrifying reminders not to be late were a revelation and all too soon I was at my desk in the Physics lab. Here I learnt all about pressure - not the usual kind I deal with every day, but the atmospheric variety. In this, as in every class that day, I marvelled at the time-management of my staff , how clearly they explained things, even to ignorant new girls like myself and how kind they were when I forgot things - like my calculator in Maths, or even the answer to 7 times 8. Like Stephen Byers before me, the brain seized up, but my Big Sister and her friends were pleased that I clearly understood the fear of giving a wrong answer even when you are sure it is right!

The morning seemed very long, even with a break mid-way. I joined the scrum for tea and biscuits, trying not to spill anything, and then went off to Junior Choir practice. At the end of term Carol Service I recognised the piece we had been learning that day and felt wistful that I wasn't singing it with my friends. Spanish and Chemistry were lessons I had particularly wanted to attend as these were subjects I knew little, if anything, about. The bad news was that the Spanish teacher was out of school on a sixth form study day so my friends helped me with the work he had set. The good news was that I experienced for the first time what happens when a class is supervised in the Resource Centre during staff absence. Chemistry occupied what I would call 'the graveyard slot' - just before lunch - and my friends confided beforehand that the experiments often didn't work. However, the Chemistry teacher must have been practising as the hydrogen popped convincingly, no-one got blown up and I now know what a Hoffmann Voltameter is!

As a result of all this activity, my chums and I were late for the lunch queue. It was not possible to pull rank on this occasion so I waited my turn. We were all starving by this time and after lunch made a bee-line for the tuck shop. Three years ago I had waited for it to open and no-one arrived. Heads rolled!! This year it was open bright and early with lots of fresh stock so I bought my Big Sister and her friends some well-deserved treats.

The beginning of the afternoon lessons saw me briefly returning to my other life in the Headmistress' Study for urgent business, but I had not reckoned on the Bursar popping in to show some visitors round. I'm not sure what they thought of a school run by a very strange Headmistress in school uniform. It was, I have to admit, a moment of severe identity crisis! However, I was looking forward to a treat at the end of the day - a History lesson on slavery. I knew I could impress the History teacher with the fact that William Wilberforce had lived in my home town. On the way to class I was warned that I should be careful about making a noise in this lesson as the teacher had a strong aversion to pencil cases snapping shut. Needless to say, with the teacher in full flow, one did! We all burst into uncontrollable giggles and it is a wonder I didn't get a detention on the spot.

I was exhausted by the end of my day and know now how tired the girls must be. My relationship with the girls has subtly changed and my Big Sister and her friends grin conspiratorially at me as we pass in the corridors. I am full of admiration for the staff - their knowledge and presentational skills were as good as I suspected them to be. Had I attended class in Headmistress' uniform, surrounded by the whiff of an 'inspection', none of us would have been so relaxed about this appraisal exercise. My 'feedback' to the school at Assembly was accepted with affectionate laughter rather than with the defensive reaction provoked by some inspection procedures. I have been 'back to the floor' three times now. It is worth a try!

Rosalind McCarthy
Headmistress
Cobham Hall School